When unexpected incidents such as natural disasters, accidents, or wars occur, responding appropriately to these incidents can save lives, prevent damage and limit injuries. Situations that require effective and fast action demand that officials need to be equipped with the most dependable public safety communications technology. The networks on which the communication technology operates, facilitates locating mobile teams in real time, seamlessly communicate across agencies and can activate broadband in a given area. Usually, during emergencies there is no time for rescuers to be concerned about the communications technology. Subscribers should be able to communicate seamlessly across multiple agencies and centers.
Interoperable communications deliver a scalable, cost-effective Internet Protocol (IP)-based solution for quickly establishing communications between disparate systems in support of emergency response and other day to day operations. Interoperable communications provide connectivity to any disparate radio system and allows users from various departments to work together in any field and seamlessly connect to each other's remote command and control and dispatch facilities. Additionally, features such as advanced call signaling are provided so that subscribers can continue to use key features of call signaling such as an Emergency ID. The design of interoperable communications bridges are cost-effective and can be scalable to any size. Two of the commonly used interoperable communication networks are LTE and TETRA. With a growing consensus that operational data should be transponded over mission critical networks, a unified TETRA and PS-LTE offer several benefits.
Defined by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), LTE is a wireless technology that enables wide area broadband communications. The key enablers or features of this technology are exceptional spectrum efficiency and high data rates. In addition to high data rates, defining characteristics of LTE are a flat, all-IP architecture and low latency.
TETRA is an open standard developed by the European telecommunication Standards Institute (ETSI). TETRA defines a digital private mobile radio system offering mission critical voice and narrow-bandwidth data services. TETRA networks enable wideband data rates of up to 80 kbps in a 50 kHz channel.
Operators of nationwide TETRA networks naturally want to protect their huge investments in these infrastructures. Though 3GPP has defined the standard to support mission critical group communications over LTE, the complete transition of Public Safety Services from TETRA to PS-LTE involves a significant duration.
Nevertheless, these narrowband TETRA networks need to be prepared for interworking with forthcoming broadband LTE networks. Although, LTE-TETRA interoperability to a partial extent is currently prevalent, several systems do not provide sufficient infrastructure when it comes to supporting mission critical communication. Further, some existing systems do not usually engage an inter-system interface between users owned network and a commercial mobile network.